SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases discussion

In October, we will continue reading this year's SFFH works, which may be good enough to be read and even nominated for the SFF Awards.

The usual rules apply: nominate up to 2 books for the month per member, one novel and one shorter piece, usually a novella, but a novelette and a short story are possible as well, published in 2025. The already published titles are preferred, because most libraries have a delay between when a book is out and when they get is (plus the queues)

I nominate Esperance by Adam Oyebanji

Novel: Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
Novella: Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

Anyone still want to read Queen Demon (#2) by Martha Wells? I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue the series but I’d nominate it if others were interested.

For novella I’ll nominate Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang.

Rebecca wrote: "Anyone still want to read Queen Demon (#2) by Martha Wells?"

I haven't liked the first book, but if you nominate and it wins, I'll read it

Well, I see that Esperance and Murder by Memory are nominated, and I have nominated them before, so I will just second the nominations above

Re Queen Demon #2 above, I have not read the first one.

Yaaaa, I was in the same boat Acorn. I won’t nominate it myself now that you reminded me of how I felt 😂

Rebecca wrote: "Yaaaa, I was in the same boat Acorn. I won’t nominate it myself now that you reminded me of how I felt 😂"

I still muse whether it was 'objectively' (in '' because it is still reader-dependent) a weak story, or just our expectations of something Murderbot-like, which we haven't realized

Rebecca wrote: "Anyone still want to read Queen Demon (#2) by Martha Wells? I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue the series but I’d nominate it if others were interested. "

My biggest problem with Witch King was that it felt like only the beginning of the story -- a lot of worldbuilding, a lot of backstory, and the assembling of a "found family" crew, but then it just ended. So the continuation of the story in a sequel is what I had hoped for, as I really liked all the elements of what we did get.

All that to say: yes, I'm definitely going to be reading Queen Demon as a high priority 2025 release.

I just updated our list of ALL monthly selections for 2023 through 2025.

For novel I'm going to nominate The Witch Roads by Kate Elliott -- we haven't read a book by her since Apr. 2021 (Unconquerable Sun, which I didn't get to)

For novella I'm going to nominate Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon -- just keeping up with nominating a different title each time my previous nom doesn't win :)

Poll for novel: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...
Poll for novella https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...

So Murder by Memory won the novella poll, but there was a tie for Novel -- which one will we read?

Kalin wrote: "So Murder by Memory won the novella poll, but there was a tie for Novel -- which one will we read?"

I used random.org, Esperance won

Yay! Esperance. Cool!

Now to see how long it takes for my holds to show up at the library...